Books books everywhere books
Filling my crannies and crowding my nooks
Books to the east, books to the west
Lined up in rows, double abreast
Books from the pantry out to the garage
My dream of more living space just a mirage
Books in the belfry and down in the basement
My wife says one more and she’ll get a replacement!
If I should expire and they lay me to rest
I’d like to make just one last request
Dig my grave deep, and lower me down
Then fill it with books to the top of the ground
Write on my tombstone “although he is dead
He hasn’t much changed from the life that he led
He’s still buried in books over his head
And finding it hard to get them all read!”
How long will it take my book to get here?
Media Mail is our standard shipping method. It generally takes about a week, depending on various factors out of our control. It may take as little as three days, or as long as two weeks (sometimes longer). We have had very good success with Media Mail, but recommend Priority Mail if you're in a hurry, for just a few dollars more. At holiday time, mail schedules are slowed by the increase in volume. We look up zip+4, and include routing and county information, whenever possible, to expedite shipping. We use printed labels, sealed against moisture. We thoroughly seal books with bubble-wrap before packing, which helps protect against moisture. This is a safeguard, but not a guarantee. We take all reasonable precautions to see that your package arrives promptly, and safely.
I'm new at this - is there anything I need to watch out for when ordering a book online?
YES! Definitely. One point that I cannot overemphasize is: Read the description very carefully, especially noting edition, and condition of book. If the description differs from the listing title (i.e. hardcover listing, description says “softcover edition”), the description is what you will get. Email the seller with any questions before buying. Please also note that Media Mail, while often very efficient, MAY take as long as 2 weeks, or even more, to get there. Although these longer delivery times are rare, if you need the book right away, let us know. For a few dollars more you can usually get Priority Mail service, with a quicker delivery time.
Why do some sellers (like the Castle Bookroom) sell some books on ebay, some books on Amazon, Alibris, and some books on their own website? Wouldn't it be simpler just to sell them all in one place?
Some books cannot be sold in certain venues. For example, many used-book venues are ISBN-centered, and older books without an ISBN cannot be sold there. And since each venue has a different clientele, booksellers have learned to improve sales by listing on different sites, according to the market for each particular book. Also, most professional internet booksellers actually list each book on multiple sites, in order to get enough exposure to generate the required amount of sales.
If you don't have the book I want, can you help me find a copy?
Yes. Send us an email, or click here:
Off-Line Search Service
The Real James Herriot : A Memoir of My Father
by James Wight
This is a poignant and earthy memoir of a man beloved by his family and friends as much as by his countless thousands of fans the world over. James Wight, son of the famous "James Herriot", does an admirable job of filling in the often less than idyllic real-world background for an idyllic life and phenomenal literary success, without spoiling the effect of a humble, sensitive, and rewarding life.
James Herriot often averred that he was 99% vet, and 1% writer, but he was 100% human, and beloved for his warmth and concern for all creatures great and small. I thoroughly enjoyed this book as an insightful and readable account of the Yorkshire vet known the world over, and find it a fitting conclusion to the Herriot stories. How pleasant to think that it might also be the beginning of a literary career for yet another "Herriot", as James Wight's aptitude with the written word moves the account along admirably, and does his father proud.
Lies Across America
by James W. Loewen
A fascinating review of the less-than-savory aspects of American history, as inspired by the fallacious, misleading, and amnesiac monuments and "historical" markers that populate the landscape from sea to shining sea. Much more than just a look at historical errors, the book is a scathing and unrelenting expose of the pernicious mythologies perpetuated in the name of history, as a subtle (and sometimes overt) means by which our collective memory is subverted and manipulated.
Loewen is at heart an idealist, who sees things as they could be, and asks "why not?", an outlook that has gotten others in hot water before. His thesis seems to be that to benefit from history, we must first learn history, embrace it, and teach it, in all it's blemished and tarnished glory. As long as we continue to allow history to be distorted, revised, and altered to suit the propagandist needs of political ideologies, we build our world viewpoint on shifting sands of myth and fantasy, for which we and our future generations will pay a hefty price.
Written with wit and, at times, biting sarcasm, Loewen's book is an enjoyable and yet disturbing guidebook to American Memory Lane, a journey that, without the doses of reality his book provides, might at times resemble more a confusing ride through the hall of mirrors. A book well worth reading, digesting, and discussing, I was sorry when it ended.
Titanic (1996)
VHS
A sobering and detailed look at the Titanic tragedy, from the big picture of it's historical/social context, to the haunting description of the cacophany of screams carrying across the glassy ocean waters ('not unlike the home-run roar of a ballpark stadium crowd'), echoing in the tormented memories of those survivors who watched their loved ones go down, as they sat huddled and shivering and paralyzed with fear and cold in the frigid safety of their lifeboats.
The people who built it, the people who owned it, the people who survived it, the people who found it - it's all here, and more. An almost painfully thorough look at a serious tragedy that brought out incredible acts of bravery, courage, and heroism, as well as blatant acts of foolishness and cowardice, for those sincerely interested in the harsh reality of the historical truth, and not the glamorized hype of the Hollywood myth. Truly an epic documentary of an epic disaster, the trauma of which continues to reverberate through our modern consciousness.
Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban..
by Robert F. Kennedy
I came to this book via the Costner film of the same title - I'd had the book in my to-be-read pile, but the film spurred me to finally crack it open. The film, of course, is not based on this book, but on the lengthier THE KENNEDY TAPES, transcripts of secret tape recordings made by JFK and only recently made available to the public.
Still, the book and the film correlate nicely, and complement one another. The book is not a finished product, in that we find that RFK was assassinated before completing his work on the memoirs; we also find that he did not speak as openly as one might after the key players had left the stage - his comments reflect a certain guarded caution.
The edition which I read contained an introduction by Bob McNamera, which was written shortly after Bobby's assassination, and was very poignant and touching, if somewhat emotional. The book is too brief, just touching the rough outline of events and feelings as recalled by Bobby Kennedy, one of the key players himself. I gave this book 5-stars for being a valuable contribution to our understanding of events that were largely hidden from the American public at the time of their transpiring. But for a more in-depth look at the clash of ideologies and the ensuing power struggles during this crisis, one has to consult other sources. I'm well into the Kennedy Tapes book, and will review it upon completion.
The Family Man
VHS
~ Nicolas Cage If, like me, you find most Hollywood "love" stories about as warm and romantic as a cold sleepless night in Seattle, then you're in for a surprise. Not since Casablanca have I enjoyed a love story as much, and though they both end at the airport, the similarity ends there. This one is about marriage, family, and the connections and sacrifices that make marriage, parenthood and yes, love, worthwhile.
Nicolas Cage plays a harried but driven Wall Street executive playboy who wakes one day to find himself trapped in a life he never wanted, married to the woman he abandoned years ago. It's a living nightmare at first, but the harder he tries to escape it, the more he begins to see that there are values and rewards that he somehow missed in his previous executive penthouse lifestyle. By the end of the movie, he's learned a lesson he will never forget.
An unexplainable fantasy in the tradition of "Groundhog Day", you soon find yourself accepting the unexplainable, even as the protagonist himself realizes there is no easy escape from his new reality, and learns to work within it's framework. After all, life throws all of us some unexpected "curves", and like the protagonist in this modern day Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Suburban Bowling League, we can become better people by accepting and embracing the crazy things life puts us through in the name of love. Chalk one up for old-fashioned family values in a feel-good movie with a message, served up without the sappy cliches.
Put the kids to bed early (The Family Man deals with some adult issues, and much as I enjoyed it, it would need a little editing before I would consider it a family film!), and just the two of you watch this one together with a bowl of popcorn and a glass of wine - you'll be glad you did!
Ask the Dust
by John Fante, Charles Bukowski (Preface)
There is an immediacy, a simple directness in Fante's writing, a childlike lack of artifice that grabs the reader and doesn't let go. It's hard to define, but writer Charles Bukowski waxes eloquent over it in the introduction. It may not be for everyone, but it had me in its spell.
This is a tragi-comedy love story, and the emotions are so real that you feel you are reading an autobiography, not a novel, and not in hindsight, but as it happens - you live each moment as it unfolds. It's also a nice period piece on L.A. in the 1930's, Bunker Hill in decline, the hop-heads and alcoholics, the starving artists & writers, the earthquakes, the prejudice against immigrants, against Catholics.
Against this backdrop, a proud, opinionated, rash young Italian, Arturo Bandini, with a runaway imagination and a burning desire to become a writer, seeks to find himself, his true calling, and true love. Fante does not polish or improve his protagonist in the telling of the tale - he gives him to us in all the coarseness and foolishness and brashness of youth as it often is - wild and impulsive. I think you'll either love or hate this book. Like Raymond Chandler, a writer in the same town, same era, Fante is a stylist, an acquired taste, a writer's writer.
A Field Guide to American Houses
by Virginia McAlester, et al
This is a great little book, it's impossible to have as much information as it does, but it does! I don't know how they got it all in there, but it's a fun, fascinating, & nostalgic look at American domestic architecture - the styles, the names, the details, packed with b/w photos, drawings, & diagrams. If you're an architect, a draftsman, a craftsman, a contractor, a carpenter, a writer, a homeowner, an armchair historian, an antiques dealer, a builder, a remodeler - then you gotta have one of these! It makes any stroll down a shady old street a lesson in architectural history. Maybe if we all paid a little more attention to just how those old-time builders and architects got so much charm and character into a simple home, we wouldn't be so quick to bulldoze and replace with steel and glass or generic tract housing!
Rachel Ashwell's Shabby Chic : Treasure...
I thouroughly enjoyed this book. I deal in thousands of books and this book is one of the few that is staying on my shelf as a reference. Rachel thouroughly captures the art of design, and sees beauty in the simple but unique items that we run across in our everyday lives. I feel she helps people to see that decorating can be fun, whether were rich or poor. It is not a book of rules but creativity! Thanks Rachel! Keep up the good work and I am looking forward to your future books!
Modern Book Collecting
by Robert Alfred Wilson
A lot of info. in a small and convenient package - this is the book I consult most frequently when checking editions because of its handy edition-checker listed by publisher. Its also the book that I wish were required reading for all those online bookseller wannabe's listing book-club editions as "first edition" and other clueless faux-pas that cause us serious book people immeasurable grief and gray hairs! A good, palatable and easily-digested overview of the book-collecting world to initiate the uninformed and usher them into the esoteric world of bibliophilia! Recommended for collectors also.
The Nancy Drew Scrapbook
The Mystery of Nancy Drew's Ghostwriter...solved! (and other fascinating background trivia for the queen-of-teen-sleuth buffs!) I'm not a true Nancy Drew fan, I'm a bookseller with a mercenary interest in the vintage teenage sleuth, but this book almost made me a believer! The author approaches her subject matter with the infectious enthusiasm of the true fan, and delves into carefully guarded mysteries of secret ghostwriter identities, Riverview's true location, and other gems of trivia too numerous to cite, with a determination and verve Nancy herself would be proud of! Fun to read, captivating, and informative to the collector and bookseller alike!
No Name Face
Life House
Great All Around CD! Let the kids listen to it! No foul language and beautiful music! Lead singer Jason Wade has such a great, sultry voice, you can leave the CD on for hours without getting tired of it! (Also great writer, wrote all the songs) If you like alternative laid-back rock, this CD Rocks! Didn't have to skip any of the songs while listening to this CD; or return it because of the language. My favorite songs were Hanging by a Moment and Breathing!
At Home With Books : How Booklovers Live...
by Estelle Ellis (Editor), Caroline Seebohm (Editor), Christopher Simon Sykes (Editor)
This is a dream book of incredible libraries and book collections, a glimpse into the private world of some serious book-lovers. It's fun to share their insights and passions, and to fantasize of someday having a library like these to store your treasures in. There is also some useful information on book storage, as well as some restoration connections, in the back. This is a book that I never tire of, a coffee-table sized book with beautiful photos throughout.
The Big Knockover : Selected Stories and...
by Dashiell Hammett, Lillian Hellman (Editor), Jeff Stone (Editor)
A short story writer to rival O'Henry (master of the ironic twist), the man who quietly escorted detective fiction from the pulp stands to the literature shelves hits his stride with these noir classics. While I would still vote for Raymond Chandler as my all-time noir favorite, I have to admit Hammett's short stories in this collection surpass even Chandler's Pre-Marlowe Black Mask stories. An incredible and absorbing display of imagination, narrative ability, and just plain edge-of-your-seat storytelling mastery.
The Big Sleep
by Raymond Chandler
THE BIG SLEEP functions on several levels, and appeals to a wide variety of readers for this reason. On the surface, it's a vintage (1939) whodunnit with a wealthy geriatric patriarch (who just wants to get rid of some bothersome gambling debts incurred by an unmanageable daughter), a missing Irish ex-bootlegger, a beautiful but shallow blonde pixie with some unsavory connections to a purveyor of smut, a long-legged raven-haired beauty who seems uncharacteristically unconcerned about her missing Irish husband, and a series of corpses that keep littering the path to a resolution of matters.
The convoluted plot may strain credibility like a politician's campaign promises, but never mind that. The book is not about plot. It's about the details of death, the emotions of danger and the smell of fear, the corruption of power, and the power of corruption. It's about hedges trimmed as tidy as poodle-dogs, stained-glass knights in shining armor, damsels more dangerous than any alleged distress that might serve to lure a chivalrous private eye into their web of deceit. It's about a Don Quixote of the mean streets waging a private war between his own base desires and his own impossible standards. It's a guided tour of the small triumphs and victories of decency and honor and human conscience in the face of the overwhelming flood of depravity, dishonesty and degradation.
It's a fun and easy read, and while some of the slang may be dated, the symmetry of syntax and the graphic power of simile never gets stale, read after read after read. A watershed work that has inspired generations of mystery writers from Ross Macdonald to Michael Connelly, and echoes in the works and words of countless of wordsmiths of the macabre persuasion.
Farewell, My Lovely (Vintage Crime/Black...
by Raymond Chandler
Farewell My Lovely, Raymond Chandler's second novel in the Philip Marlowe series, transcends the genre it helped to create, and is now (deservedly) viewed by many as literature and as social criticism.
Chandler creates moods and telegraphs emotions via the poetic ramblings and outrageous similes from the mind of Philip Marlowe, the protagonist/detective/narrator who is picked up by the collar and dragged into a murder mystery that exposes not only the hypocrisy beneath the surface in the lifestyles of the rich and beautiful, but ultimately, the depravity of the human condition. And all of this is delivered with a caustic sense of humor, a wry wit, and a hypersensitivity to the visual world and it's translation into the language of the mean streets.
Although Chandler died shortly before I was born, I grew up in L.A., and I can say that the L.A. Chandler wrote of is in many ways the city of my childhood memories, so well did he capture the ambiance and ambivalence of the 'city of angels'.
Some have criticized his plotting and plausability, but emotion, action, and detail were what interested him the most, and in these he excelled. FAREWELL MY LOVELY must be viewed within the context of it's era (published in 1940) to be fully appreciated, but the flow of action, the visual aspect of it's language, and the insights into the very human conflict of corruption verses conscience are timeless.
This book, like the first in the Marlowe series (THE BIG SLEEP) was written at the height of Chandler's creative career, and exemplifies the style that has made him a writer's writer, possibly the most imitated author of the past century.
Benet's Reader's Encyclopedia
by William Rose Benet (Editor), Bruce Murphy (Editor)
A handy reference work for scholars, literature students, readers and booksellers, the headings include authors, titles, literary terms, fictional protagonists, historical personages, and so forth. This is one to keep at arm's reach, right there next to the dictionary.
A quick & ready reference for unfamiliar terms encountered during literary jaunts and journeys, and a great aid for booksellers needing some accurate background information to list a literary find online! One wishes the numerous online booksellers just entering the fray would purchase a copy, and familiarize themselves just a little with the world of books and literature of which they have become purveyors! - I've seen listings that betray the seller's ignorance of the difference between Winston Churchill the British statesman (& prime minister), and Winston Churchill the American novelist! A quick check of this easy reference work would have made the difference between accuracy and diletantism!
Asleep in the Sun
by Hans Walter Silvester
This book belongs in every doctor's, dentist's, and attorney's waiting room! No one has mastered the art of total relaxation like cats, and this book just oozes tranquility. The photographs are incredibly candid and unstaged, the compositions are worthy of study for their artistic cropping and dynamic balance, and the patina of the architectural backgrounds is both beautiful and comfortable to the eye. No question about it, Silvester has take feline photography to the level of high art with this beautiful collection.
My Life
~ Michael Keaton
Keaton and Kidman shine in this story about love, life, death, parenting, and priorities. This is a movie that looks at life and what's really important, through the eyes of a man dying of cancer (Keaton), whose wife (Kidman) is pregnant with their first child.
In the process of coming to grips with his terminal condition, Keaton also comes to grips with his repressed anger toward his parents, and his inability to open up to his supportive wife. He learns to let go of his anger and to face his fears head-on, strengthening the ties that bind and healing past wounds, in this touching story of one man's road to fulfillment in a life cut short by tragedy.
A very well put together comedy-drama, Keaton's acting is superb, and the scene where he confronts his parents at his brother's wedding is so real that it reverberates with authenticity. I recommend this movie for making us stop and think about our priorities in this short life, and for showing that courage and heroism are not storybook qualities of swashbuckling superstars, they exist in the realm of real people, in everday life.
Thirteen Days (Infinifilm Edition)
~ Kevin Costner
The scenario opens with this delemna: Soviet nuclear weapons are being installed in Cuba, with Washington D.C. and every major American military base (except Seattle) within range - leaving the U.S. just 5 minutes away from Soviet first-strike nuclear capability, and the ensuing deaths totalling something like 80 million! The Cubans have denied the missles' existence, the Soviets have denied their existence, and the rest of the world doesn't know of their existence. As things unfold, Kennedy realizes that he has to go to war with the Soviet Union, or else somehow he has to negotiate the removal of the nuclear warheads with a hostile Soviet government, without tipping his airstrike plans to remove them forcibly if negotiations fail. To complicate matters, the military establishment and the intelligence community are seething with anger over Kennedy's refusal to engage an all-out attack on Cuba during the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, and view his detente stance as tantamount to treason, for his willingness to strike a compromise with the Soviet "red-dog" that's "digging in OUR backyard!". They have a complete lack of confidence in his leadership, and a general consensus among themselves that the United States MUST engage the enemy in open warfare, up to and including open nuclear warfare!
There are a lot of ways to view this film - political, historical, drama. I tend to agree with the comment that it represents a worthy case-study of effective leadership under pressure. As a historical lesson, it hits harder than they're allowed to in the school textbooks, for it reveals a deep rift of insubordination on the part of the pentagon, coupled with an intense pressure to engage in warfare without genuine provocation, by some of the nation's influential military and intelligence leaders at that time.
How Kennedy utilized the military establishment to further his mission, despite their open hostility to his viewpoints and policies, how he deftly avoided being baited into open confrontation with his military leaders, how they chafed under his leadership and struggled to circumvent his decisions, and how he manged to get through the crisis without being coaxed, coerced, cornered, or outsmarted into declaring open war with Russia is a lesson worthy of study.
Despite a few flaws (the family scenes with Kenny O'Donnell's wife & kids are not well integrated, the b/w footage is distracting at times, there is just too much of O'Donnell [Costner] in the film), I give it 5 stars for great acting, excellent direction (you feel like a fly on the wall, observing the whole thing unwind), good pacing, and overall historical accuracy.
Bruce Greenwood (JFK) and Steven Culp (Bobby Kennedy) deserve an award for their acting, but there are no weak performances in this film, and the confrontational scenes are electric with tension and testosterone. The subtlety of the body-language acting is impressive, and the photography/direction are also on an award-winning level.
Not an action-thriller by any means, the tension here is more on a psychological/political level, with the impending threat of out-and-out nuclear war providing the "sword of Damocles" that hangs over Kennedy's every hard-wrought decision, and imbues the film with it's 'serious-business' demeanor. If you have the patience to sit for two and a half hours (almost) of history unfolding before your eyes, then I highly recommend this well-presented docu-drama of a decidedly important chapter of recent American history that is often skipped-over lightly in the textbooks.
The Perfect Storm : A True Story of Men...
by Sebastian Junger
In this enlightening and engrossing book that chronicles the life of a huge, freak storm that leads to disaster at sea, the author gives us a front-row seat to the events and circumstances that lead, inexorably, to the disasterous finale.
As events unfold, we come to understand and admire these men, everyday working people who regularly put their lives on the line for their paycheck. We gain an appreciation for the dangers they face at sea, we see firsthand both the beauty and the brutality of the ocean. And much more so in the book than in the movie, we see what kind of economic factors and pressures, as well as what kind of personality factors, drive these men to put themselves at risk, so that what at first appears to be reckless abandon ends up looking much more like economic necessity coupled with an absolutely unpredictable twist of nature.
Also included in the unfolding drama are some amazing stories of survival, rescue, and heroism. And you really get a feeling for the awesome power this incredible threefold-storm generated!
While some have criticized the movie for being "pure fiction", the book is a different story. True, no one made it back to tell all, but there was radio contact up until the very end. And what the author does, in areas where all the facts are not known, is research other very similar situations at sea, to show what happens when a boat is in such-and-such a situation; what does the captain do, what do the crew do, what do sailors think and feel under those circumstances. Because no one made it back to tell, the author wanted to put absolutely as much information as COULD be known down as a record of this incredible event. The movie takes liberties that the book does not.
The book comes across as a fitting tribute to the men who died on the Adrea Gail, and the countless others who have died at sea, and who never returned to have their story told. I hope we hear more from Sebastian Junger in the future!
Another noir classic by the master, in this episode detective Philip Marlowe finds crime as deadly in a lakeside resort as it is on the mean streets of the city of angels, and the body count mounts as the suspense builds and the plot twists. The character development is impeccable, the dialogue lively and bright and suitably sarcastic, and the plotting as convoluted as any Chandler classic would be likely to be.
The mountaintop setting for much of the story lends itself to some poetic prose from the sensitive tough-guy with an eye for beauty and an ear for simile. The narrative flows easily as Marlowe unwinds the mystery to it's inevitable conclusion, observing, lamenting, and condemning the corruption and injustice of the American social structure while withholding judgement from even the most vicious and violent, in his typically refreshing blend of cynicism and naivete.
The writing is spare and straightforward, but it's an illusion, an act of synergy, for the totality of effect is magnified beyond the sum total of the parts, proving that in literature as in art, less is more.
Ruined by Reading : A Life in Books
by Lynne Sharon Schwartz
reading is a common subject matter, countless books have been written on the subject. But here, the author takes a lighthearted but very personal look at the impact of books, and reading, on her life. She probes the question that is seldom addressed - just what impact does reading actually have? Is reading living, or just the written record of living? If we read and then forget, how has what we're read impacted us? Does reading make us a better person? Or even a different person?
While everyone will have their own answers to these questions, I enjoyed the author's unstructured reminiscences and ruminations, appreciative that she would share this portion of herself with other booklovers who also ponder these abstracts. One thinks of Louis L'amour's rambling biography, for while these two authors are world's apart in personality & perspective, both are confirmed, card-carrying bookaholics, just sharing their love of and commitment to the written word.
Foreword
In a sense, this is a biography ~ the life and times, the battles and the triumphs and the tragedies ~ of a living book. I have attempted to sidestep the minefield of doctrinal explanation and interpretation, and to focus only on the fascinating life story of the Bible text and its sojourn through millenniums of turbulent human history, across wide cultural gaps and seemingly insurmountable language barriers, to our present-day modern translation. In this I have relied on the help of numerous reference works, but I alone take full responsibility for any errors or omissions.
Introduction
“The foundation of all study of the Bible, with which the reader must acquaint himself if his study is to be securely based, is the knowledge of its history as a book,” said the late scholar Sir Frederic Kenyon in his book “Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts.” I, on the other hand, believe a Bible student could be perfectly well grounded by a study of nothing more than the Bible itself. Yet it seems inevitable that at some point the sincere seeker will want to examine the story of “textual transmission,” meaning how the Bible got to where it is today. As Mr. Kenyon went on to point out, we need to know that the Bible we read and study is “substantially in a correct form.”
This is easier said than done, of course, for the modern translation is by no means a settled matter. And regardless of which translation we might choose as a starting point, we would find that the trail back to the original documents quickly becomes clouded, convoluted, and rife with (surprise, surprise) controversy. So rather than begin with a modern translation and work our way back, I’ve chosen to start at the beginning, and work our way forward through time. Of course, the Bible has from the beginning been subject to impassioned polemics and ideological clashes. Much of its history has occurred under clandestine conditions. There are periods devoid of information, others flooded with contradictory disinformation. Even modern scholars who specialize in various aspects of the Bible’s history are not always in agreement ~ to understate the case.
The Bible has been claimed by more opposing parties with conflicting agendas than a contested inheritance in a family feud. So to retrace the path of its text, one must become somewhat of a detective, sifting through discrepant statements, ferreting out facts, chasing down clues, dodging distortions. Nevertheless, the story that emerges is an engaging one, for the Bible is like no other book, its history singularly unique. Like many others, I believe that we can piece together enough of the puzzle from the information available to be assured that we have the Bible in substantially the form it was written. This knowledge has not come without cost, ‘though, for people have given their lives to this study, and for it, in some cases.
It is with an appreciation for the efforts of these people that I tell the story that follows, and with the hope that it will engender a deeper appreciation for the value of what we have today. For countless people in past generations have hungered and toiled and even died for that treasure which we today so easily take for granted: a modern translation of the complete Bible in an accessible and affordable format.
Chapter 1: The Hebrew Bible
In the beginning…
The writing of the Bible proper was begun by Moses, shortly after Israel's celebrated exodus from Egypt, when he made a written record of God's laws and requirements for Israel. Remarkably, this relatively small collection of laws essentially transformed Israel from an ancient patriarchal ethnic group into an organized nation. Even more remarkably, however, Moses’ writings were the start of a book that would be some 1600 years in the making!
Even God himself contributed a portion to the written record, according to the Bible’s account, for it was by "the finger of God" that the ten commandments (or Decalogue) were first written on stone tablets, amid thunder and lightning and smoke there at Mount Sinai. Later, Moses began no less ambitious an undertaking than compiling and recording the history of creation - and of the people who would become the Nation of Israel. To this he added further clarification of the divine laws governing all facets of life in ancient Israel, including especially their worship.
It is generally agreed that the Bible’s beginning took place about 3500 years ago. The Hebrew Bible (often referred to as the "Old Testament," a term seldom used by the Jews, by whom these scriptures were originally penned), was itself completed about 450 years before the birth of Jesus. Meaning that even if we consider the Hebrew Bible as a complete unit, not including the Christian scriptures, it was still a little over a thousand years in the making! Moses contributed the first five books of the Bible, which together comprise the Pentateuch (meaning "five scrolls"), or Torah (meaning "law"), but at least thirty-eight other writers contributed to the formation of the Hebrew Bible canon (those books recognized as belonging to the accepted collection making up the Bible).
Following the Law (Torah), came also the “Prophets” (Nevi'im) and the “Writings” (Ketuvim). That is to say, the Jews divided the various books of the Hebrew Bible into three groupings: the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings, which in Hebrew would be Torah, Nevi'im, and Ketuvim. Taking the first letter of each of these three words, the Jewish community gave the name Tanak (from TNK, sometimes spelled "Tanakh") to their Bible.
While there are 39 books in the Hebrew Bible canon according to most modern Bible translations, the Jews often group them into 24, as follows: Five in the Torah (the same as everyone else’s Bible); eight in the Nevi'im (Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Twelve Minor Prophets in one scroll); and in the Ketuvim twelve books (Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Chronicles). The significant thing is that these 24 books comprise exactly the same books that are covered in the 39 books of most Bibles.
Back then, writing was a tedious and painstaking process, done with a pen made most likely of a chisel-tipped woody reed stalk (the Greek word kalamos, translated "pen" at 3 John 13, means literally, "reed"). The ink used was made of soot and gum mixed together, on pages made of processed leather, or vellum (a type of calf-leather), or papyrus (a natural paper made from laminated strips of the pith from papyrus, a grassy swamp plant, in a process similar to the making of plywood). These "pages" were sewn together using animal gut for thread, into one long continuous page, to be rolled around a wooden spool (called a navel) with handles, for use as a scroll. Although sometimes they would forego the spool, and just roll it up. These spoolless scrolls wore out more rapidly, because of the extra handling of the leather involved, yet surprisingly, the oldest complete Bible scroll (of the book of Isaiah) in existence is a spoolless scroll – but more about that later. Papyrus wasn’t sewn, it was actually made up into long continuous sheets at the time of its manufacture, to be used in scroll form.
Scrolls were only written on one side. As you can well imagine, the ancient use of the scroll was very different from the codex system currently employed (codex refers in this context to a flat-book format, with square or rectangular pages written on both sides, attached along one edge and sandwiched between flat boards or covers). We'll learn more about the formation of the "codex" book when we get into the history of the Christian scriptures.
Just preparing the scroll-leather for writing was difficult, and during later medieval times this scroll-leather was scarce. So sometimes an old scroll would be scraped, to remove the previous lettering, and then re-used. Such a re-used scroll is called a palimpsest (meaning literally, “scraped-again”), and some of these palimpsests once contained valuable and significant ancient Bible manuscripts - which had been removed! Thankfully, however, most of the original text can often be revealed by means of infra-red photography and digital enhancement techniques.
. If we could picture the birth of the Bible, it would likely appear this way: There would be Moses, diligently scratching away with his reed pen in hand, his handmade ink of soot and gum in a little earthenware or stone basin at arm’s reach, and his unfinished scroll laid out before him, probably of leather. And as he writes, we would notice that he is writing from right to left, the words crowded in vertical columns, and without any vowels or punctuation! This is in fact how the ancient Israelite language was written, and while it does look odd to the untrained eye, it was a logical system at the time. For one thing, it made for economical use of materials (the ancient Isaiah Scroll mentioned earlier is twenty-four feet of continuous leather – if it contained vowels too it would likely be nearly fifty feet!). Further, a lack of written vowels saved some wear and tear from the grueling task of hand-lettering on a less-than-perfect surface.
As with most modern alphabets, the ancient Hebrew alphabet was phonetic (as opposed to pictographic, like some ancient cultures), with each written consonant representing a particular consonant sound. The reader knew how the words sounded, so he supplied the vowel sounds as he went, and the flow of thought determined the right word in cases where more than one possibility existed.
Also conspicuous by their absence (to our eyes) would be the familiar chapter and verse designations we take so for granted today, as these were never a part of the original Bible, and in fact weren’t fully developed until the advent of moveable-type printing. With the use of scrolls, it wasn't possible for a Bible reader to be quickly flipping to this scripture or that, in a leather scroll many feet long, and the Bible frankly just wasn't used that way.
In fact, in the beginning the Bible was basically a public book, used mainly in assembly worship, first at the temple, and later, at the synagogue. The priests (and later, the rabbis) would no doubt have done private reading, and engaged in open-book discussions with each other, in order to read with feeling and proper sense-stress, and to teach with authority. When a monarchy was established in Israel, the kings were commanded to make their own private copies of the scriptures. And since the Bible discusses the importance of reading scripture, it would be logical to assume that most families did have portions of scripture in written form, as befits the devout and highly literate society that archaeology tells us the ancient Hebrews were.
Yet very few private copies of the Hebrew Bible in its entirety, or of complete Bible books, existed in ancient times, being expensive and labor-intensive to produce, and ancient Israel being an agrarian society, not given to the amassing of large personal libraries. For the general population, then, much of their Bible reading would often be experienced as an audience, and private meditation been based on memory. (In fact, this would be the case for Bible adherents for centuries, until the invention of the printing press in the 15th century.)
To this end the Bible itself incorporates different memory aids, such as acrostics and musical accompaniment. You can well imagine how much easier it would be to remember passages where the first letters of the first words of the verses progressed in alphabetic order, or where the verses were put to music and sung aloud. The book of Psalms is exemplary in this regard, but ironically, for the most part these memory aids have been forgotten, or have been lost in the translation. Thankfully we do something even better than these memory aids, ‘though, which is a complete and inexpensive Bible available to just about anybody who wants one!
The writers of the Bible represent a variety of diverse backgrounds, from kings to farm laborers, and virtually all of the 39 or more writers that contributed to the Hebrew Bible were themselves Hebrews, and unanimous in giving God the ultimate credit for authorship.
handmade copies
From the start, it was obvious that copies would need to be made of the Bible text. While it wasn't possible for everyone in Israel to have a private copy of the complete Hebrew Bible in their home, it also wasn't feasible for just one copy to serve the needs of the growing nation. Like everything else, copies wore out with use, and the one thing they were designed for is use. So early on in the history of Israel copying the scriptures by hand became an occupation of tradition and importance. This is of interest to us, for the oldest scripture texts we have available today are copies. There are no known autograph manuscripts of the Bible in existence today (autograph meaning the original document by the hand of the original writer).
These Bible copiers were called copyists (Sopherim) or scribes. The Bible book of Ezra is named after the priest Ezra, who was "a scribe, expert in the law of Moses," according to Ezra 7:6. One of the factors that helped to promote the profession of the copyists was that many Jews in Ezra's day no longer lived in Israel, but due to forced relocation resulting from military defeats, or voluntary relocation due to economic considerations, were scattered throughout Babylon and Israel's neighboring nations. Religious assembly halls called synagogues (from a Greek word meaning “gathering”) came into vogue among these displaced Israelites who found themselves unable to attend the temple services in Jerusalem, and handwritten Bible manuscript copies were needed for these synagogues. Synagogues had a separate room for storing old defunct scrolls, called a geniza (ge-neez-ah), which served as an archive or depository of discarded documents, and which we will soon see the significance of.
While it's a common observation that errors were bound to creep in with the human factor, it likewise should come as no surprise to learn that many of those ancient copyists were aware of this danger, and took extraordinary precautions to preserve the accuracy of the sacred text. So while we know for a fact that errors, omissions, and even additions occurred, it is also a fact that the abundance of ancient manuscript material available today testifies to the accurate preservation and overall integrity of the Bible's text. All of which will be clarified further as we progress along in our study.
Preservation vs Revision
Throughout the history of the Bible, the astute observer will note the presence of two conflicting forces locked in a never-ending struggle. On the one hand we find those who viewed the Written Word with the utmost sanctity, to be preserved as accurately and as faithfully to the original text as possible. On the other hand we find those who viewed the written word as secondary to the Ecclesiastical (church, or religious) Power Structure, to be revised, edited, or censored according to the whim of these ecclesiastical powers-that-be. This latter group constituted a greater threat to the integrity of the scriptural text than all the accidental oversights and inadvertent errors combined.
We can see this illustrated in the case of the scribes, or Sopherim, whose job it was to copy the scriptures for public use. These were extremely careful to protect the integrity of the text at first. In fact, the term sopherim is the plural form of the word sopher, which comes from the word saphar, meaning "to count, or to number". Thus, the word sopherim literally means "the counters," a reference the Sopherim’s practice of counting each letter of every book of Scripture, to make sure nothing was inadvertently added or omitted.
Eventually, however, they began to view their function in a different light. Hebrew Bible authority C.D. Gingsberg noted, in his “Introduction to The Massoretico-Critical Edition of the Hebrew Bible,” that the Sopherim came to be viewed as "authorized revisers of the text.” Yes - remarkably, they felt they had the legitimate authority to make changes in the text of the scriptures! Mr. Ginsberg gives examples, showing that they substituted some euphemisms in an attempt to pretty-up the text by adding words like “decayed leaves” in place of “dung”, re-wording some passages that ascribed anthropomorphic attributes to God, and altering some 134 scriptures which contained the divine name.
Commentator Jack M. Lane (formerly with the Worldwide Church of God –WCG- and webmaster for LivingTheWay.org), commented on this situation thus: “There was, at one point in history, an organized attempt, by the very scribes who copied the Hebrew scriptures, to change certain words and phrases in the scriptures. One of the things that they did was to remove God’s name from scripture in 134 verses! 134 times, these scribes removed the name of God and substituted ‘Adonay’ [Lord], often out of reverence and respect for God’s name, and a wish not to blaspheme God’s name by using it too often.” (bracketed word mine)
Fortunately, we know which verses the Sopherim tampered with, because of the work of the Masoretes. These were devout Jews who, during the sixth to the tenth century C.E., made a concerted effort to restore the text of the Hebrew Bible to its original form as accurately as possible. Some have viewed the work of the Masoretes as a reaction to the Jewish Talmud. The Talmud was completed about 500 C.E, and corresponded with a growing emphasis on rabbinic teaching and tradition affiliated with synagogue worship, as opposed to priestly teaching associated with temple worship (which ended completely in 70 C.E. with the destruction of the temple at Jerusalem). The Talmud is a commentary on the Mishnah. The Mishnah is comprised of the oral laws and traditions of influential rabbis of ancient Israel, which touch on some scriptural issues, but are separate and distinct from scriptural laws and teachings. In time, the Talmud came to be viewed as the “supreme sourcebook of Law”. Thus the Talmud began to supplant the Hebrew Bible as the final authority, and hence was viewed by some as a force threatening, or weakening, the integrity of the Hebrew scriptures, which were in danger of falling into obscurity as a religious relic.
Pushing the pendulum back again in the opposite direction were the Masoretes, fanatical in their devotion to preserving the accuracy of the written scriptures. These also were “counters”, for in order to avoid adding or omitting even a single letter, they counted both the exact number or words, and even letters, that they copied. This means they would have had to keep track of hundreds of thousands of individual letters! It is said that if one letter were omitted, or one extra letter inserted, or if one letter even touched another, the entire manuscript, representing countless hours of painstaking labor, was immediately destroyed!
They developed a system called Masoretic Points, to give the vowel-less words of the Hebrew Bible their proper pronunciation and meaning by the use of points (dots) representing vowels. This was a big boost to Biblical accuracy, for words without vowels were sometimes mistaken for similar words using the same consonants. They studied the ancient manuscripts with excruciating thoroughness, observed where the Sopherim had made changes, and made notes of this in the margins of their Bibles (their “masora,” or marginal notes, are legendary). Their Bibles were meticulously and methodically prepared, and are widely respected and consulted for their accuracy.
While the Masoretes came on the scene after the advent of Christianity, they did not accept the Christian scriptures, nor did they accept Christ as the messiah, yet Christians who enjoy using an accurate translation of the Bible are indebted to these dedicated copyists. This is because modern Bible translations of the Hebrew scriptures are based on the Masoretic text, almost without exception. Yet, we must acknowledge that some scholars feel that the Septuagint is more reliable than the masoretic text.
The Septuagint – Hebrew into Greek
One of the results of having so many displaced Jews living in the nations surrounding Israel was that eventually they absorbed the language of their new surroundings, and forgot the language of the Old Country, the language of the sacred scriptures. In addition, in the centuries leading up to Jesus' generation, a phenomenon known as "Hellenization" was taking place in the cultural center of the ancient world. This was the spread of the Greek language and culture, in no small measure due to the influence a highly successful Greek conqueror known as Alexander the Great.
Much could be said about this colorful and controversial figure, but I will include one quote from "Explore the Book" by J. Sidlow Baxter: "In his Syrian campaign he marched southward on Jerusalem. He not only spared Jerusalem and offered sacrifice to Jehovah but also had the prophecies of Daniel read to him concerning the overthrow of the Persian empire by a king of Grecia. This created decidedly pro-Greek sympathies among the Jews, and along with Alexander's spreading of the Greek language and civilzation, had its far-reaching repercussions in the Hellenistic spirit which developed among the Jews and greatly affected their mental outlook afterward."
While there is some debate as to how thoroughly this Hellenization actually affected Jewish life and culture, we do know that by the time of Christ, the Greek Language was widely and readily spoken among the Jewish people. And by and large the Christian scriptures were all written in Greek, despite the fact that all the writers were Hebrew.
So it seems inevitable that a Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures would be in order, and that’s exactly the conclusion reached by some Jews in Alexandria. For here, in this Egyptian city at the center of the thriving Hellenistic culture, in the third century before Christ, was produced the first real translation of the Hebrew Bible. In this case the Hebrew Pentateuch into Greek, known as the Septuagint. The Septuagint (often designated by the abbreviation LXX) is not really a singular translation of the Hebrew canon, but a collection of translations of widely divergent quality and origin, but which began with this Alexandrian Greek Penteteuch.
Utimately, this first translation of the Scriptures would give birth to a tradition of exaggerated attacks and unrestrained controversy among the scholars, a tradition which has plagued just about every Bible translation ever since! Yet surprisingly, the Septuagint began life as an “authorized version,” in that it was apparently initiated and approved by the leading Jewish religious authorities of the day. Some have speculated that in order to foster acceptance among the populace, it was openly espoused as an “inspired” translation ~ a claim that was to suffer a precipitous death with the advent of Christianity, as we shall see.
What is remarkable about its authorized status, however, is that it required an ideological leap of faith, for the Jews had always equated their holy writings with the original “sacred” language. In fact, there is evidence that many Jews resisted, on the basis that no language could ever do justice to the beauty and power of the original text, since, in their estimation, every other “gentile” language was inferior to their own. Furthermore, rather than resist the Greek influence, it appeared to condone it, a ‘truce with the enemy’, as it were.
There are different theories about why the resistance to a translation of the scriptures finally collapsed. One rumor is that the translation was actually requested by Ptolemy II, the king of Egypt, who wanted a copy of the Hebrew Bible in his own language, for his own royal library, which was of quite some renown. This theory was promoted in a legendary tale of Aristeas’, touting the divine inspiration of the translation, for it told of seventy-two translators, who worked each in isolation from the other, and after seventy-two days these scholars produced seventy-two translations of the entire Hebrew canon, that were miraculously identical down to the very letter! This tale is given little credence by most scholars today, who claim that the historical and textual evidence just doesn’t back it up (although a few experts do accept the authenticity of the story). It did leave its mark, at any rate, for the name Septuagint, and the abbreviation LXX, both mean “seventy”, an allusion to the story of the seventy-two translators, which somehow got rounded off to seventy.
Another theory is that with so many Jews no longer speaking their original tongue, the resistance to the Greek culture was greatly weakened, and a translation in their own language would strengthen the crumbling bulwarks. And yet another line of thinking is that, rather than a defense, it was actually a counter-attack to Hellenization, an attempt to proselytize the Greek world, to win converts to the Jewish faith and culture, which centered around the Word of Holy Scripture.
Pick your theory, or make one of your own, the fact is that the Septuagint was to become an astoundingly powerful document that shattered an old order of things, impacting that ancient world with a resonance that is felt down to this very day. Scholars have called it a “translation that changed the world”, for it opened the Bible for the first time to the world outside the small nation of Israel. It laid the groundwork not only for a new era of proselytizing and dispensing of the Jewish faith, but to the chagrin of many Jews, for the ensuing diffusion of the Christian faith as well. And it opened a new dialogue between adherents of scripture and adherents of Greek philosophy and culture, which was to have a great impact on both the Jewish faith, and on the early Christian church in the centuries following Jesus’ death. The Septuagint was the official translation of the Hebrew scriptures for the Catholic Church up until the time of Jerome in the fourth century. To this day the Septuagint is still the official “Old Testament” of the Eastern, or Greek Orthodox, Church.
As mentioned, the Septuagint actually differs slightly in wording from the widely respected Masoretic text, not in any groundshaking faith-altering way, but in ways that are significant to scholars nonetheless. Because of these differences in wording, scholars feel that many, if not most, of the quotes from the Hebrew scriptures that appear in the Christian scriptures, are from the Septuagint.
When the Dead Sea Scrolls began to infuse new light and life into the study of the Bible in the mid-twentieth century, they also surprised scholars with new light on the Septuagint. These ancient manuscripts suggested that the Septuagint actually followed a Hebrew text slightly different from the Masoretic Hebrew text, for some of the Bible writings in Hebrew that were uncovered were closer to the Septuagint than they were to the Masoretic text. This was decidedly news, for scholars had always thought that the differences occurred during translation. Now that didn’t appear to be the case. Thus the value of the Septuagint for study purposes has been enhanced, as the history of the Bible continues to unfold.
Getting back to the first century, however, we find a rapid change of attitude, among the Jews, toward the Septuagint. Possibly because the widespread acceptance of the Septuagint did such an effective job of laying the groundwork for the rapid spread of Christianity (viewed as an apostate or heretical form of Judaism by first-century Jews), the Septuagint came to be despised and rejected by the Jewish culture that produced it. As Christian evangelists quoted scripture after scripture from the Septuagint to argue for the scriptural basis of their newfound faith, the Jews would counter that they were using a faulty and unreliable translation. The Septuagint’s approved status and attendant claim to inspiration were put to rest without ceremony, and it wasn’t long before new translations were in the works, in an effort to supplant the Septuagint among Greek speaking Jews.
Other ancient translations of the Hebrew Bible
Preceding the Septuagint was the Samaritan Pentateuch. This wasn’t actually a translation proper, as the Septuagint was, but a transliteration of the first five books of the Bible, with numerous minor deviations, into the Samaritan alphabet. The Samaritans were distant relatives of the Israelites, and there were hard feelings between the two. The Samaritan Pentateuch directed worship to take place in Mount Gerizim, as opposed the Hebrew Pentateuch’s injunction to worship at Jerusalem on Mount Zion. The Pentateuch, we should note, was the only part of the Hebrew Bible that was accepted as inspired scripture by the Samaritans. None of the oldest existing copies of the Samaritan Pentateuch are older than the 13th century, whereas copies of the Septuagint date back to the 4th century.
The "Targums" were paraphrased versions of portions of the Hebrew Scriptures in the Aramaic tongue, a language related to Hebrew, and widely used among the Israelite culture in the era preceding Christ. Although it is alleged that the Targums began as verbal paraphrases in the years following Jewish repatriation from Babylon, it has been stated that they probably weren’t written down in their present form any earlier than about the fifth century, from which date we have the oldest copies of these Bible “versions”. While some are more literal than others, they are of note in the history of translating the Holy Writ.
As stated earlier, the Jews who rejected the Septuagint were anxious to replace it, and a Jewish proselyte named Aquila of Pontus, in the second century, came to their aid. He produced a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible that has been described as "so literal that Jews of his time preferred it to the Septuagint," as well we can imagine they would, given the circumstances. Unfortunately, other than some fragments, and quotations from it by other writers, there are no longer any copies in existence.
Another Greek translation from the same time period was made by Theodotion. Although Thodotion studied the Hebrew scriptures, it appears that rather than being a fresh translation into Greek, his is rather a revision or correction of the Septuagint, or possibly of some other Greek version of the Hebrew Scriptures. Like Aquila’s translation, no complete copy of Theodotion's version has survived to our day. Another Greek version of the Hebrew Bible which suffered the same fate is that by Symmachus, whose version, probably translated at the beginning of the third century, is said to have taken the paraphrase rather than the literal route.
Sometime around the middle of the third century, a church scholar of Alexandria named Origen completed a huge parallel version of the Hebrew Scriptures called the Hexapla (meaning "sixfold"). Origen was interested in studying and comparing the various versions available in his day, and his book contained a column of the Hebrew Bible, one of a Greek transliteration, Aquila’s translation, Symmachus’ version, the Septuagint version, and Theodotion’s version. Some fragments of Origen’s Hexapla exist, but again, we have no complete copies today.
Chapter 2: The Christian Writings
In contrast to the slightly more than a thousand years taken to complete the Hebrew Bible, the Christian scriptures were completed in about 50 to 60 years. While there is some disagreement on the exact dates of authorship, most scholars will agree to this 50-to-60 year approximate window. For several years following Jesus’ death, the early church existed solely on oral instruction coupled with the Hebrew Bible, and we can safely assume that complete copies of even that were not plentiful among the small and persecuted early congregations. Eventually, the historical accounts both of Jesus’ life and ministry, and of the early church, along with letters of counsel, were committed to writing and circulated among the fledgling congregations. The book of Revelation was one of the last books written, toward the end of the first century, but not necessarily the very last, despite its fitting place as the final book in the Bible.
By the time of the writing of the first books of the Christian canon, Greek was the language of the day, and papyrus the writing surface of choice. We don’t find ancient manuscripts of the Christian writings on leather, like we do with the Hebrew. Later, the more expensive vellum (also called parchment) would come into vogue, as the early church gained in prestige, wealth, and political affiliation. And while it seems that the scroll format was still the order of the day at the time that most of the Christian scriptures were written, it wasn’t long before the superior codex format took over the playing field.
The codex – a revolutionary change
As mentioned previously, scrolls were awkward to use. From a practical standpoint, they were also unwieldy to store, and to carry. Around the turn of the first century, another form of book began to gain popularity in the Roman world that had by then superceded the Greek culture (while retaining the Greek language), and that was the codex. At first used as notebooks or ledgers, these were made of long pages that were folded, stitched together along one edge, and bound between protective boards. Parchment (vellum) was used for the pages, and papyrus could also be used.
Once people became exposed to the codex format, its superiority over the scroll became apparent. It was more compact (allowing longer texts, like the gospel accounts, to be contained in a single volume), more economical, the pages could be written on both sides, the boards offered protection, and it was more convenient to store and to carry. But possibly most significant of all, it allowed for easy access to various references, something that was almost impossible with scrolls.
This is not to indicate that the codex set the ancient world of books and writing on its ear overnight, for people are naturally resistant to change, and they had developed a certain facility and familiarity with scrolls, despite their apparent awkwardness. It would take a few hundred years before the codex would completely eclipse and ultimately eliminate the scroll system, but it definitely got off to a running start, and we'll see why.
The early Christians were excited about the new format, for theirs was a work of carrying the written word to people, referring to scriptural backing by referencing scriptures. The historical record indicates that Christianity and the zeal of its evangelizers was a major factor in the early acceptance and spread of the codex book format, a revolution as significant as the invention of the printing press, according to some historians.
Interestingly, the Christian scriptures, while written just before the development of the codex, were very much of a scripture quoting and referencing nature, on a scale unprecedented in any of the writings of the Hebrew Bible. It has been calculated that the New Testament writings quote from or refer to the Hebrew scriptures nearly 900 times!
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